Month: December 2008

As a new year approaches I want to take the time to thank the Edusim community very much for being one the pioneers in what I believe will evolve over the next several years into one of the most exciting classroom technologies since the 16mm projector – that being peer to peer based virtual worlds on the classroom interactive whiteboard. Being that this is the first full year of the Edusim project I also wanted to share with the community the Edusim year in review.

Our first year with Edusim was an event filled one. We moved to the Cobalt (http://opencobalt.org) code base in July, expanded our formal student pilot groups out to 5 more classes of students in October, began creating content packs out of the Google 3D warehouse in November, and grown the formal community out to over 1,200 members by December. The community is the group really forging the future of the concept of 3D virtual learning spaces on the classroom interactive whiteboard (and laptop/computers !) and I thank them very much.

This new year we plan to release the first official beta version of the application (in the first quarter), and by the end of the summer we plan to have a searchable .c3d lesson/world warehouse that will allow users to find learning worlds and load them into their Edusim environments. As the Cobalt project matures and features become more stable we will test and integrate those most stable, powerful, easy to use, and relevant to the classroom into the Edusim project application. Please feel free to submit any feedback you may have to the community network at http://edusim.ning.com. Your feedback could be in the form of video trials, pictures, artwork, models, your .c3d worlds, or anything in between !

Thanks again for your pioneering spirit and your contributions to the Edusim project !

I am currently putting together a technical specification document for a project I am calling “MOODLE’3D” that is a 3D layer to the Moodle interface where each student will come into their learning space “room” and be presented with a 3D version of a Moodle workspace for their class.

My early thoughts revolve around a solution that:

(1) Is open source (or maybe not)

(2) Is Multi-user

(3) Scales regardless of the number of users (or classrooms)

(4) Dynamically sets up the 3D learning space by querying the Moodle MySQL database (but can be edited independently)

My son and I were laying down to go to sleep and began discussing how people might interact with “objects from a distance” some day (or “plausible copies” of those objects). We discussed how it is now possible to “scan” a 3 dimensional object into data….. basically create a “bit copy” of the “atomic object”. We then discussed how nano-technology and “nano-fibers” may some day be programmable so that the bit copy of the object would essentially “pop out” from the future interactive surface (though possibly only slightly). It was a very interesting conversation… Below is a quick little diagram briefly describing our conversation.

Filed under “Exciting New Projects” but really an extension of Edusim (in the hardware space this time) – you will see me post more over the next several months of the “Mobile Immersive Learning Lab”. As I get nearer a prototype (than this very rudimentary design) I will post video and photos, but the concept is one of an enclosed virtual learning space – with surrounded projection of the virtual learning world the students are exploring – similar to the StarLab Concept (with a rectangular configuration). along the lines of a CAVE – however simpler, mobile, and relatively in-expensive by comparison.

I have the design specs. complete and have been creating rough layout sketches & price listings for constructing the prototype to – Ill post more later – but I am looking very forward to moving this concept forward !

Feel free to provide feedback by commenting to this post or emailing at – rich.white@greenbush.org